New technologies always require some planning, changes, and experimentation before they merge into an enterprise stack. GraphQL adoption has been no exception to this. Companies like Airbnb, Netflix, Shopify, and other industry giants have all taken the leap to use this promising technology. In this article, I will outline a few key considerations for creating your new service, deploying it, and monitoring the service. This assumes that you have a basic understanding of what GraphQL is, some of the key use cases, and awareness of some of the concerns in regards to adoption. With that in mind, let’s jump in.
GraphQL vs. REST
Before you begin to build your GraphQL service, it’s important to consider the reigning approach for building Web APIs: REST. A common misconception about GraphQL is that it is a replacement for REST. Thinking of the technology in this light would be very wrong. Both GraphQL and REST can be very complimentary and most enterprises will use a mixture of both approaches.